Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Nothing Like An Original Thought....

In today's Columbia Missourian, an editorial by columnist J. Karl Miller, a retired Marine colonel, is putting out the fantasy that there is rampant voter fraud and that picture IDs will solve this problem. Never mind that there is no evidence of anyone voting fraudulently and that this is nothing more than a push for voter suppression. Mr. Miller also plagiarizes the Employment Policies Institute, a right wing economics site. In the EPI article titled ACORN in Hot Water Again for Voter Fraud, the following paragraph is offered:

"Missouri – The St. Louis elections director estimated that after investigating 5,000 registrations turned in by ACORN, only 10 to 15 percent were legitimate and it had appeared that names had been copied from the phone book. More egregious violations include registrations for three dead people and one 16 year old."

Now below is a paragraph from Mr Miller's article:

"The registration irregularities came from duplicate, questionable and unreadable forms, names, addresses and Social Security numbers not matching official records and multiple voter applications signed by the same person. In St. Louis, cards in alphabetical order and obviously signed by the same person appeared to have been lifted from the phone book. ACORN admitted some discrepancies, but dismissed most as merely the product of sloppy work by a few temporary hires. That may have been the case; however, when weighed against its transgressions in other states and that it is funded largely by the decidedly conservative-unfriendly AFL-CIO, ACORN has earned a closer scrutiny."

As you can see, Mr. Miller is not only stating opinion as though it was fact, but does not cite the source he is using. The "phone book reference was not attributed to either the St Louis official that allegedly said it or the EPI article.

Let me remind everyone that there has not been one instance of anyone voting when they were not supposed to, period.